Anti-discrimination policy for transgender students weighed

MCCCD may add group to anti-discrimination policy

For Julian Melson, the clarity of a hard-won sobriety six years ago made two things apparent.

He needed to start over with his education. And he needed to face the fact that he was a man.

The acceptance he found of his new identity at GateWay Community College was crucial in attaining a certificate, he said. That's why he hopes the Maricopa County Community College District formally recognizes transgendered people as a protected group.

Melson was born female but knew his whole life that he was male.

"From the time I was 5, I had those thoughts," he said. "Wearing jeans and playing in the dirt wasn't enough."

After starting his recovery from drug addiction at age 39, he began transitioning to his identity as a man, taking testosterone and changing his name, driver's license and other documents.

After two years, he was ready to return to school and registered at GateWay in Phoenix. "I had all my ducks in row," he said. "I had thought of everything."

He was shocked when he was turned down for financial aid because he had never registered for the draft at 18, when he had been female.

"So I had to out myself to the counselor, and I was terrified," Melson said.

The GateWay financial-aid counselor was kind and helpful, and after lots of phone calls and paperwork, Melson got the financial aid, returned to school and earned a certificate with a 4.0 grade-point average. He now works as a technician at a hospital.

"Going back to school was all new to me, and any resistance I would have faced and I would have said, 'I'll try another route.' But the education is what got me here."

On Tuesday, the college district's governing board will consider adding transgendered men and women to the list of groups protected from harassment.

The change would add "gender identity" to race, religion, sexual orientation and other protected groups under the 10 colleges' non-discrimination policy. It would protect students and staff who are of one gender but identify as the other gender. Those individuals, also known as transidentified, may or may not be medically transitioning to the other gender.

Arizona State University and the University of Arizona have had gender identity in their anti-discrimination policies for several years. The MCCCD board considered the issue in 2008 but never took a vote.

This may be the right time.

"We're totally behind the momentum all over the country of not only colleges and universities but also Fortune 500 corporations who have these protections," said Lori Girshick, a sociology professor at Chandler-Gilbert Community College and author of "Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men."

Education is key

Some people in the process of transitioning have not legally changed their names, and their birth names may appear on class rosters. They can ask their teachers to call them by other names or use the pronoun they identify with, but if teachers refuse or transgendered people face harassment in class, those actions would not be considered in violation of the non-discrimination policy.

A February study by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that of more than 6,400 transidentified people surveyed, 78 percent reported harassment in school and 90 percent reported discrimination on the job.

Erica Keppler, a Phoenix software engineer and co-founder of Arizona TransAlliance, said education is the key for transgendered people to get and keep jobs.

"We face tremendous discrimination, and the best tool and resource we have to hedge our bets against discrimination is education," she said. "If you want to avoid discrimination, the wise choice is to hang out with educated people, and the best way to do that is to become one of them."

Keppler said going to job interviews is difficult for transgendered people, whose appearance is outside the norm. "That's why they need to have 10 times better skills than the other applicants, or they'll say no to you."

Jane Joyce had a unique perspective on the issue while taking classes at Phoenix College. Joyce, who began her transition eight years ago at age 20, had a class with another transgendered person.

"I'm fairly fortunate because I'm 'passable' and most people wouldn't have a clue," said Joyce, an artist, author and musician who works in a Phoenix law firm.

Yet navigating the world as a transidentified person is always treacherous, she said. "I call it the 'red alarm.' It's always going off, 'problem, problem, problem,' and you can never turn it off. For me, finally, it's off."

Opposing views

But Family Watch International sees problems with the proposed policy.

"This would protect the behavior of anyone, for example, a man who wishes to present himself as a female, which means they could use girls showers and bathrooms," said Sharon Slater, president of the Gilbert-based group. "Proponents of this policy have suggested that they do not think that people who suffer from gender-identity disorder should be confined to the gender-neutral bathrooms created for this purpose.

"What if a male presents as a female to be on a sports team? How do you deal with that?"

She said the protection would be too broad. "There's no limitation. It's not defined as what that expression can or can't be when it steps over the line."

Family Watch has great compassion for people who identify with their non-biological genders, Slater said, but they already are protected from harassment and violence under the general non-discrimination policy.

Currently, anyone who faces problems on a college campus can complain to a department head. Adding transgendered people to the policy would give them the courage to believe they will be taken seriously, Girshick said.

"People want to be supported," she said. "They don't want to be humiliated or embarrassed."